Who constructed LGBT identity in Indonesia?

In Indonesia the State has shown its fierce opposition to homosexuality. But at the same time, they have helped move LGBT identities from the margins to the mainstream, writes Hendri Yulius.

In 2016, the Indonesian government’s stance on homosexuality became clear.

Various government representatives and officials made a series of derogatory public statements against homosexuality, associating it with pedophilia, mental illness, and sexual deviance. In their eyes, same-sex relations or practices were dangerous and twisted.

What makes the recent anti-homosexual vitriol different from before is the increasingly popular use of the term LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender).

This includes not only political elites, but the media, which has also made previously unfamiliar LGBT denominations a part of daily conversations, encapsulating these diverse non-normative sexualities and gender expressions into a solidified category.

Gay, lesbi, and waria in New Order Indonesia (1966- 1998)Before the use of LGBT, Indonesians involved in same-sex relationships or practices began to identify themselves as ‘gay’ and ‘lesbi/lesbian’ in the late 1970s when media coverage on the topic began.

A story about the marriage of two women — Jossie and Bonnie in April 1981– started extensive coverage and discussions on homosexuality from different angles, including psychoanalysis to figure out the cause of homosexuality. The adaptation of the terms gay and lesbian emerged from the global flows of identity politics and international sexual rights organisations.

These terms also circulated among same-sex social networks, allowing Indonesian homosexuals to join a clear identity category. The first gay organisation was Lambda Indonesia, established in 1982 to connect gay men across the archipelago and increase self-confidence and social acceptance by disseminating positive information about homosexuality. Interestingly, the inclusion of ‘Indonesia’ in the organisation’s name highlighted the Indonesian-ness of gay Indonesians, who faced different experiences from their Western counterparts. Its approach was non-confrontational, focusing on education, publication, and network building.

The term waria, (wanita-pria/ female-male) often frivolously translated as male-to-female transgender, has a different history – and one in which the Indonesian State plays a significant role.

In 1972, the Jakarta Mayor Ali Sadikin invented the term wadam (wanita Adam/female-Adam) to signify men with feminine mannerisms that were said to possess a female soul. He established the first wadam organisation, Himpunan Wadam Jakarta (The Association of Jakarta Wadam) to legitimise their rights. However, in 1978 wadam was replaced by waria because of protests from Muslim clerics complaining of the inappropriateness in using a prophet’s name, Adam.

While the terms gay and lesbian circulated widely through media and social networks, waria as an identity was formalised by the State, which in doing so officially recognised gender non-conformity. However, instead of formal acknowledgement for homosexuality, the State has long condemned the practice, refusing to legitimise same-sex relationships and/or homosexual identity.. Government and public officials continue to see homosexuality as something that goes against Indonesian culture and religion.

Circulation of LGBT terms during reformasi (1998- present)The collapse of Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime in 1998 brought democratisation to the forefront of Indonesian politics. As a consequence, human rights discourses proliferated in many emerging LGBT organisations.

Transnational connections with LGBT activists and organisations overseas and an influx of foreign funding also contributed to the circulation of LGBT terms in Indonesia, and created a sense of solidarity with international LGBT movements. At the same time, previously suppressed Islamic politics also burgeoned, with Islamic-based organisations successfully infiltrating politics landscapes and using decentralisation to make Shariah based laws.

At a national level, the Pornography Bill (No.44/2008) was introduced. It listed ‘deviant sexual intercourse’, including ‘necrophilia, bestiality, oral sex, anal sex, lesbian, and homosexuals’, as pornographic content. At the local level, some local regulations (peraturan daerah/perda) also criminalised homosexual practices, conflating them with prostitution.

On the other hand, in 2008 the Department of Social Affairs (Departemen Sosial) issued a guidebook of social services for waria, which classifies the group as part of the country’s recognised diversity. But this position changed shortly after.

In 2012 the Ministry of Social Affairs classified gay, lesbian, and waria as parts of minority groups with social problems, along with street children, the homeless, and people with disability. It associates these sexual minorities with social problems on the basis of their ‘sexual deviance’.

Hence, the Ministry provides and expands social services to these groups in the forms of social rehabilitation, protection, and empowerment. Although sexual aversion therapy was considered in 2016, it has never been implemented. Today, waria or gender non-conforming gay men continue to be arrested alongside female sex workers by local public order officers, and sent to assessment camps for ‘creating a public nuisance’.

The absence of the LGBT term in all of these policies signals that both local and national political systems were not familiar with the terminology. Interestingly, the proliferation of sexuality discourses in policies signifies the State’s gradual awareness of non-normative sexualities, and its efforts to capture and regulate them.

In addition, after increased pushes for marriage equality in the US and the greater visibility of LGBT movements supported by foreign funding, the State has become aware of the term and associates LGBT activism with same-sex marriage. Equally important, the term LGBT was also recently introduced into popular debate by an Islamic pro-family group, The Family Love Alliance. In a court hearing, they took legal steps to revise the existing Criminal Code to criminalise homosexuality and introduce the term LGBT and even ‘Queer’ in the hearing.

These dynamics show that while the State has not criminalised or even used the term LGBT in their policies, the term itself has moved from the margins to the mainstream. The term has become popular and dominates current national discourse. Through these forces, the State may come to know and care about non-normative genders and sexualities.

On the other hand, proponents of LGBT rights also popularise the terms. The fact that same-sex practices and non-normative gender identities/expressions were common in some ethnic groups indeed provides justification to ‘normalise’ LGBT Indonesians.

However, the recent development those same-sex practices are also started to be labeled ‘LGBT’, while actually those carried different subjectivities from the contemporary sexual identities. A media outlet, for example, refers to those cultural-specific practices as ‘LGBT culture and tradition’ (tradisi dan budaya LGBT). Despite the positive intentions, it runs a risk of ‘LGBT-isation’, symbolically consuming local indigenous practices and conflating it with (‘Westernised’) modern identities.

The flipside is also that since reformasi the Indonesian State has increasingly bowed to conservative religious powers and notions that the majority of Indonesians share similar stances with. The cultural war in the name of LGBT will continue to be waged. The world will be observing just how Indonesia positions itself within the forces of globalisation around LGBT rights.

Hendri Yulius obtained his Master’s in public policy from the National University of Singapore, and is the author of Coming Out. He is currently pursuing his Masters by Research in Gender and Cultural Studies at The University of Sydney.

Further reading

Blackwood, Evelyn. (2010). Falling into the Lesbi World: Desire and Difference in Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

12 Responses

As a Canadian with the usual Canadian attitude to LGBT issues– a kind of not my business so go for it!– I am not only comfortable with my government’s generally outstanding record in regard to getting the state out of the nation’s bedrooms but proud that the government’s policies are generally in accord with the feelings and attitudes of the majority of Canadian citizens.

According to Pew Research, Indonesian people appear to be even more amazingly united than Canadians in their attitudes toward LGBT issues.

Whereas Canadians register 80% in favor of social acceptance, Indonesians come in at a remarkable 93% disapproval of social acceptance of homosexuality. You have to wonder what sort of a democracy Indonesia would be if the government and its officials were not to reflect what is obviously the consensus position of the vast majority of Indonesians.

Many Canadians remember when our federal government was promising to decriminalize marijuana over a decade ago in accord with majority opinion. The US ambassador along with other high-level officials in the Bush administration made it clear that this was not acceptable and threatened to “increase security” at the border, which, simply put, was a veiled threat to shut down a huge proportion of the Canadian economy.

So the decriminalization promise was shelved and the NDP leader justly lamented the passing of Canadian sovereignty.

It isn’t hard to imagine phraseology like this– “At the same time, previously suppressed Islamic politics also burgeoned, with Islamic-based organisations successfully infiltrating politics landscapes and using decentralisation to make Shariah based laws– being used by the Bush folks to talk about the “infiltration” of “pro-marijuanists” into Canadian politics, when from our perspective of course it was just how a majority of people thought and felt.

I wonder where the author of this piece stands on the development of democracy in Indonesia and whether he thinks that LGBT issues might benefit from a return to an authoritarianism that would bow to international pressure and redefine Indonesian sovereignty as something like “whatever the international community prefers”.

Michael Wilson, do you think that LGBT Indonesians don’t deserve their basic human rights like any other LGBT members from other countries such as Canada, etc? Where do you stand when or if LGBT Indonesians are being prosecuted and discriminated by a larger majority group of Indonesian people?

If I understand you correctly, JJ, you are suggesting that “basic human rights” are a set of universal values which should be enforced in every human community whether or not the members of that community actually share the values.

Who would you have take the responsibility for denying Indonesians their democratic rights and their national sovereignty?

Would you prefer that Trump’s America be the moral guardians of the planet or would you leave that to the UN?

I of course would support the right of LGBT people and everyone else in Indonesia or anywhere to have the same freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian charter.

I feel certain that with my support, and $4, anyone in Jakarta could get themselves a triple mocha at Starbucks, gay, trans or cis-gendered white man.

“Diversity” is a wonderful thing, until the divergence is one of values.

Then a “liberal” turns into– dare I say it?– a kind of fascist totalitarian who refuses to even consider the possibility that their sense of what is right and what is wrong may not be true for all people everywhere.

While it is natural for Canadians to take ‘pot’ shots at Yanks, please refrain from doing so. It is not germane to this discussion, regardless of whom is President or PM in Ottawa (and I speak as a former Canadian Resident). The issue is LGBT rights in Indonesia and how they can be implemented fairly, recognizing the rights of those who may not agree with non-heterosexuality, but do so in a civilized manner. Inevitably, I am afraid this will become politicized, like everything else in Indonesia, right Monsieur Wilson ?

Yes I think that the basic human rights are universal values because everyone has the right to pursue happiness, right to life, liberty, personal security, free of discrimination, prejudice, freedom from degrading treatment, housing equality, right to recognition as a person regardless sexual identities and sexual orientations. Everybody is different, there are different religions, beliefs, races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations and identities, nationalities, etc), whether certain community is a majority or a minority, it doesn’t mean that one should have more rights or less rights than the others.

For example, if a large number of Muslim Indonesian extremists think that LGBT members need to be prosecuted and treated as less than human, that means that these extremists don’t share the same values and don’t respect human basic rights, just because they are the majority, does it mean it’s the right thing to impose on the minority? I don’t think so, sometimes we all have to fight and stand up for what’s right and people with power such as government entities should support the oppressed citizens. Historically, for example, if there was no fight in regards to slavery, women’s rights, ethnicity cleansing, colonization and so on, where would we be? What would we become?

If an LGBT youth is treated badly by the community because the community believes that being LGBT is wrong or unacceptable, shouldn’t there be something to be done? No one should stand and fight alone, human beings always need support from their community.

I definitely do not support Trump and of course I’m hoping that the UN will always do the best to fulfill their mission and vision.

Both conservatives and liberals have their own extremists, there is always the good and the bad, but, it is important to always support human rights and equality for everyone, it’s the birth rights. Just because a community think that one shouldn’t be treated better doesn’t mean that we should let them be, one less victim, one less bullying, one less LGBT person on depression or committing suicide, anything should help to create a better future.

That’s what I think and what I believe, and again, human rights should never be politicized.

Canada has full LGBT rights. Hardly fair to compare Canada to Indonesia. PM Trudeau and President Jokowi have as much in common as the Indonesian police and the RCMP. Maybe we should discuss EQUINE rights in Canada ?

It is a long way for LGBT Indonesians to have the same rights as LGBT Canadians. But, I’m sure that most LGBT Indonesians would want progressive movements or at least one step forward and they need all the supports they can have. Debating about EQUINE rights in Canada won’t change what’s happening to LGBT Indonesians. Are you guys familiar with the Chinese Indonesian ethnic cleansing in 1998? As far as I know, many members of the group fled the country, and I forgot how the situation was handled later on but it would be a shame for Indonesia if many LGBT Indonesians will flee the country and seek refuge elsewhere.

I fled the country when I was 17 the moment I had the chance because I was way too traumatized with my life experiences growing up. At the moment, it was fleeing and seeking a refuge elsewhere or suicide. Sometimes I still have nightmares about waking up in a country where fears were everywhere, I never felt safe, I wasn’t alive then, I was waiting to die, either from suicide or becoming a victim; rape, molestation, sexual battery, torture, bullying, conversion therapy, discrimination, neglect, abandonment, brainwashing, harassment, religious doctrines, … etc. Maybe I was a coward, but I had no fights left in me, it took me 12 years to feel alive, free and human again. I could never forget though. Today I’m in a better place but I think I’m gonna need a lifetime therapy to keep going. The only thing I’m thankful and felt lucky was that I had that chance to flee.

Thank you, JJ, for taking the time to actually answer a question about fundamental values. It is a rare thing on New Mandala, as it is everywhere on the internet, for anyone to bother to do so.

As I hope I have made clear, I support the right of all people everywhere to achieve the same level of rights protection as Canadians have in their charter.

Where I have doubts, as I tried to make clear in my example of American economic pressure denying Canadians their democratic right to elect a government that has promised legislation that they want to see enacted, is where the “universality” of human rights conflicts with democracy and the right of a people to choose the system of government and the legal structures under which they will live.

Liberal-democracy is indeed a wonderful system. I am thankful for having been raised and educated within such a framework before the plague of neoliberalism started hollowing out the meaning of democracy and substituting in its place the dual determinisms of human rights and market economics.

If the people of Indonesia are denied the right to elect governments that govern in accordance with their religious or their moral/ethical principles and must instead adapt themselves to a set of social standards that emerged out of the liberation movements that followed fast on the heels of the civil rights movement in the US and the broader west, how will they ever really relate to “democratic values”?

That is if they relate at all.

When electorates oppose “austerity” and elect socialist governments as happened in Greece, the realities of the market are invoked to deny their right to govern themselves as they choose.

When an electorate chooses to leave the neoliberal embrace of the EU, as has happened recently with Brexit, they are excoriated as racist xenophobes and on that basis will no doubt see their democratically determined decision undermined to the point of meaninglessness.

Trump and his henchmen-to-be are going to be the folks in charge of deciding what “universals” will be inflicted on the world for the next 4 years. He is being labeled a “populist”, just as Thaksin and all his pro-poor reforms are dismissed as “populist” by the Yellow factions in Thailand.

The author of this piece clearly suspects that any Indonesian administration that deviates from the “universals” is somehow doing so under the table by “infiltrating” government, which is just another way of suggesting that they are giving in to “populist” pressures.

It seems that in many ways the “democratic” half of the liberal-democratic equation is slowly being turned into “populism” so that it can be attacked by the chattering classes before being utterly crushed so that pure “liberalism” can take its place.

The problem with that, of course, is that although it may warm the cockles of HR defenders’ hearts all over the globe, everyone knows that when the universality of human rights conflicts with the universality of market economics it is the market that has the guns.

At some point, I suspect, there will be a great weeping and wailing that in our rush to impose universal human rights alongside market economics we lost the control mechanism that democratic structures provide.

If liberalism acts as a check on unrestrained democracy, then it is also true that democracy is there to restrain the deracinated theoreticals of liberalism. Having one without the other is not necessarily half as good as having both.

Liberal authoritarianism,here we come?

It may even one day be called the Beijing Consensus the way things are going.

About the Author

Hendri Yulius obtained his Master’s in public policy from the National University of Singapore, and is the author of Coming Out. He is currently pursuing his Masters by Research in Gender and Cultural Studies at The University of Sydney.